Hits

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Ballpoints, Ballots and Hanging Chads

(alternately titled, True Confessions of a Florida voter)

My favorite thing about voting is receiving my "I voted" sticker. It's proof to everyone that I fulfilled a major right of my citizenship - that I care about the direction of my country. I know that it's a silly sort of pride, but I really don't care. I only get to puff up about a sticker once every four years, so I'm making the most of it.

(Although, I have to admit; these stickers aren't as cool as the ones last go-around... the ones with the big check on them. I love checks. It's like an extra helping of "good job!" on my sticker.)

As proud as I am of fulfilling my "patriotic privilege", I couldn't help feeling a little bit sad as I drove away, knowing that putting my little ballot into the machine was all I could really do to make a difference as to who our Commander-in-Chief will be for the next four years. There were signs warning against voter solicitation, which stopped me from grabbing people and letting flow my great political wisdom in a last desperate attempt to convince everybody in Precinct 4 to agree with me. Truth is, even if I convinced all of Precinct four, it wouldn't make much a difference. All the democrats live downtown.

In lighter election day news, there were no machines with which to vote today, in fact, no buttons to push at all. We had to fill our ballots in with ballpoint pens, like a standardized test (only most of the grades come out "D" or "R"). I'm not sure if other states are using the same system, but I found it humorous. No hanging chads to embarrass Florida THIS year!